I was browsing in the Canterbury branch of Waterstones book shop recently and as is my habit when I find myself in a book shop, I was drawn first to newly published works and then to favoured writers.Canterbury itself is a beautiful medieval cathedral city and is rightly proud of the Chaucer penned ‘Canterbury Tales,’ I expected this work to be promoted as a contemporary piece and was not disappointed.The window display featured G.K. Chesterton and inside the shop, he shared a table with writers of other similar period classics.The usual British suspects were present in good number; Graeme Greene, Kingsley Amis, George Orwell… no surprises. American, South American and European literature featured on a table apiece, as did Russian literature.I have read a number of the novels on display in these geographical splits and of course the number of titles I have yet to try, exceeded those that I have. Since I plan to live for another hundred years or so, I’ll get around to them.Whilst I was heavily engaged in the art of mooching, (we mooch, you mooch, they mooched – from the verb to mooch) I was struck by how many of the titles had received new covers since I last noticed them.Some of these were branding issues, such as Penguin’s famous orange classics series. Some, it seemed obvious, had been redesigned to give them a contemporary feel and hopefully an appeal to readers who may not have picked the books up in the first place.We, as readers, have all been familiar since we started to read with the old cliché of not judging books by their covers. Whilst well intended, it is of course, only part of the story, as is the cover, as is the plot. Humans are predominantly visual in our appreciation of our surroundings. Publishers know this and they exploit it in order to stay alive. The debate rages continuously about the relative merits and short comings of digital reading and whilst I’m a fan (I’m a fan of any form of reading), I still love nothing more than walking out of a book shop with a new novel or two.Fellow bibliophiles will identify with the ceremony of opening a new book, smelling the fresh ink and taking a deep breath. The best place to start reading, for most, is somewhere quiet. For me, it’s a quiet pub in mid-afternoon with a pint of real ale. Whatever your surroundings, genre choice or reasons for selecting the newly started work of fiction, be it classic or contemporary, I’m guessing that the cover played the biggest initial part in drawing your eyes to the book.Once we are attracted to the cover, we check the title and author; are we familiar with either, what did we think of any previous work(s) already encountered? If I’m happy up to that point, I read the back cover blurb and then open the novel randomly to read a few paragraphs. Then I turn to the front and read the opening line. If all of these categories are satisfied, I buy the book.I still have very vivid memories of opening lines to books I have picked up and bought solely on the strength of them whether it be Paul Aster’s character roller skating to America, or ‘It was the day my Grandmother exploded,’ in Iain Banks’ ‘The Crow Road,’ a great opening line will always grab me. Ultimately, the opening line and the random excerpt have to make at least an equal impact as the cover.Publishers know this and pay art departments’ significant percentages of their budget to revitalise, repackage and redesign flagging titles, prop up long established titles or re-launch (on occasion) near misses.All understandable and all fair enough.So here are my questions…How do you choose a book? Is the cover important or not? Have you ever decided to replace a novel you have read because you no longer have it and then been put off by the new cover? Do you have a sentimental attachment to novels in particular covers, or are the covers singularly unimportant to you?I’m interested, my third novel will be available soon and very shortly, I’ll be involved in the thorny issue of helping to choose a cover. I’m very proud of the cover Eric Ulrich supplied for Dogs Chase Cars, less so of my self-designed cover for Moscow Drive.What are your thoughts? Hiw important is a cover in drawing your attention to a book and what needs to happen next before you part with your money?